Recently, various systems and technologies for improving driving safety and ride comfort of a vehicle have been developed and applied to the vehicle. Most of such systems, including a semi active suspension system, control damping force characteristics of dampers according to behavior information of the vehicle, particularly, acceleration information of a vehicle body. That is, each damper of, for example, the semi active suspension system is independently controlled by using the vertical acceleration information detected by an acceleration sensor installed on the vehicle body above a corresponding wheel.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is provided a front view of a conventional bracket for use in installing an acceleration sensor 10 in a vehicle, which is used in the system for improving the driving safety and ride comfort of the vehicle. As shown therein, the acceleration sensor 10 is combined with a bracket 20 by means of a pair of screws (not shown), and is installed on a vehicle body (not shown) via the bracket 20 which is mounted on the vehicle body by means of another pair of screws (not shown). The bracket 20 is of a plate shape and has a pair of screw holes 22 formed in two opposite end portions of an upper portion thereof and another pair of screw holes 24 formed in two opposite end portions of a middle portion thereof. The screw holes 22 are used to combine the acceleration sensor 10 with the bracket 20 while the screw holes 24 are used to mount the bracket 20 on the vehicle body.
Since, however, the acceleration sensor 10 installed on the vehicle body via the bracket 20 is exposed to gravity levels as high as 10 G because of impacts, vibrations and like induced by irregularities of a road surface, and to multidirectional forces while the vehicle is running, there always exists a high risk of looseness or breakage of the screw joint between the acceleration sensor 10 and the bracket 20. If the looseness or breakage of the screw joint occurs, a malfunction or failure of the acceleration sensor 10 can be caused which in turn leads to a malfunction of the system for improving the driving safety and ride comfort of the vehicle by using acceleration information of the vehicle body such as the semi active suspension system.